Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-11-25
How Crnnberrics nre Grown in New
Jersey.

Jersey.
A cranberry marsh of the present dav is
as handsome plat of green things growing
as the eye could rest upon says a New York
Mail writer, but the rearing of the bushes
on a new bog to the age of fruit bearing Is
attended with no end of care and toll to
say nothing of the expense Since the cul
tivation of Cranberries assumed the pro-
portions of large and important agricu-
tural pursuit in New Jersey. three enemies
not one of which assaed the bush in its
wild state have risen up against it--a grass
bulrush and an insect. After a new
marsh or swamp has been cleared, ditched
and sanded, it is planted 10y taking cuttings
or slips from old bushes and inserting one
end of them in the layer of sand. on the
peat soil, which is pushed closely about the
slips. Cranberry slips soon take root in the
generous peat, and begin to grow almost
Immediately. They spread rapidly over the
marsh, but before they have reached out
their branches many days the planter finds
them surrounded and choked 10y the sharp
edged, stiff leaved, three square grass, and
its inevitable cOad tutor, the hardy and per
sistent bulrush The grass and the rushe,
must be removed root and branch, for
which purpose curious gouges and peculiar
hoes and other implements have been de-
vised. These peStiferous weeds have to be
constantly watched, and uprooted every
week or so for two seasons so thoroughly
impregnated does the soil seem to be with
their germs and 50 rapidly do they develop
At the end of the second year the cranber.
ry bushes have obtained such strength and
Roadway that they cover the ground all
over the bog like an immense velvety mat
of emerald, and have choked the enterpris-
ing grass and PUSHES out of existence 1t
is estimated that to foster a cranberry bog
to this stage Of its existence costs the own
err 500 an acre. If man should want to
buy two-year-o bog, thrifty and in per
feet condition, he would be lucky if he
could obtain it for less than 5000 an acre.
Cranberry bushes blossom at the begin
ming of the third season, and from that
time on the grower may expect a visit
from the web-worm, the most dreaded enc
my of the bog. A singular characteristic
OF this insect is that it never gives warning
OF its coming on a marsh, The cranberry
grower may go to bed at night without
having been able to discover sign of a
web-worm on his bushes and get up next
morning to see the marsh look as if it were
covered with miniature banks of fog. and
the tops of the bushes drawn together so
tightly that "a Irvine tied around them could
hardly make them any closer The light
banks OF fog are the webs of the worm
which have been constructed during the
night, and are what pull the tops of the
vines together. In day or So the vines
turn yellow, the blossoms drop to the
ground, and the owner of that marsh does
not mako any very large calculations on
profits that year. About the lst Of Novem-
Der they are submerged under five or six
feet of water with which the hogs are nrti
tciAlly flooded This water is drawn of
about the middle of May, and the bushes
come TO view as fresh and green as Il June
clover field